The South Korean smartphone manufacturer on Friday unveiled a range of accessories designed especially for users with special abilities. The accessories announced, called 'specialised usability accessories', are compatible with the Samsung Galaxy Core Advance smartphone that was announced in December 2013, launched in India in February 2014.
The three
Samsung specialised usability accessories
announced - the Ultrasonic Cover, Optical Scan Stand and the Voice Label - supposedly complement the Galaxy Core Advance's functionalities. These accessories are now available from Samsung and can be purchased separately from the Galaxy Core Advance. The company is also planning to provide other such accessories compatible with other Android smartphones from its stables.
Samsung, while announcing the smartphone, had claimed that the
Galaxy Core Advance comes with number of usability functions and enhanced accessibility features for differently-abled and visually-impaired users.
It noted that the some of the usability and accessibility features on the smartphone include optical scan, which can recognize text from an image and reads it aloud; light sensing technology, which uses the device's camera to sense light direction and brightness, and instant voice recorder which gives access to make quick voice notes.
However, all these features, require special accessories to use - accessories that were only announced on Friday.
Ultrasonic CoverThe case will be useful for people with eyesight problems. It allows users to detect obstacles along a path (up to 2 metres away) and informs user by sending an alert through a vibration in smartphone or through an audible TTS feedback.
Optical Scan StandWhen a user places the Galaxy Core Advance on top of the Optical Scan Stand and puts a printed material set beneath, it translates the printed text into speech. Also an appropriate app is automatically opened whenever any printed material is detected below the phone.
Voice LabelIt assists users in distinguishing objects by allowing them to make notes and tag voice labels. It is essentially an NFC tag that can be used to record and trigger audio notes. Once a note is recorded while the tag is placed on an object, it can be later played back with just tapping the smartphone on the object.